


Wooden Dolls

by silver_of_the_stars



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - World War II, Angst, Historical Inaccuracy, Human & Country Names Used (Hetalia), Multi, Nuclear Warfare, Past Character Death, Possible Character Death, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25481152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_of_the_stars/pseuds/silver_of_the_stars
Summary: -Every country knows pain, some scars running so deep they can never fade, worked so far into their very core that they've become part of who they are. Trouble brews as new conflicts arise and emotions overflow, and old rivalries and alliances resurface.TW: blood, war, manipulation.-
Relationships: America & China & England & France & Russia (Hetalia), America & England (Hetalia), China & Japan (Hetalia), England & France (Hetalia), Germany & Japan & North Italy (Hetalia), Hetalia Ensemble/2P Hetalia Ensemble
Kudos: 7





	Wooden Dolls

_"You don't have to do this." Warm brown orbs turn back to look at me. Those eyes, not once during this entire ordeal, have held an ounce of hatred toward me. After the things I have done to this man, he still looks at me like I am the world to him._

_"Even after everything," I reply, "You still refuse to accept that I'd hurt you."_

_"It's okay. I'll always be here for you," the man whispers. He smiles with the gentleness of a summer cloud, the wisdom of hundreds of years written across the specks of gold in his eyes. I feel a flash of rage burn across my heart, an urge to prove that I don't need him anymore. My hand moves before my mind._

_Red, dark and dull, splatters across the ground in an arc of pain. I walk away quickly as I sheath my weapon, ignoring the scream chilling enough to turn air to frost behind me._

_He will not die._

_\---------------_

_I can't pull the trigger. I wouldn't. He'd known from the start that I had not a single chance of defeating him this way. Those innocent blue eyes stare into my soul, and they won't let me move. I mutter a string of curses under my breath as he picks up his weapon where it was thrown back on the ground._

_"It's over," he says. He raises the barrel to my temple, and I close my eyes._

_I know this will not be part of the history he will teach to the children of his land, that he will cut it out as if it never happened. I will be the villain in his textbooks; I will be the one who painted the land black with the forbidden brush of death._

_"It's not over. It never will be. Not as long as I..." I trail off. Unlike me, his finger doesn't waver against the metal, and the gunshot is loud enough to shatter my thoughts. It hurts for just a moment._

_Not as long as I love you, I'd wanted to say, but I let the darkness consume me._

_I will not die._

_\---------------_

_"Give up," the man tells me, the hostility in his voice as sharp and biting as the frost on a winter morning. I do not know his name, and I do not need to. I shake my head vigorously once more. I will not lose here; the others are counting on me. "Sign it," he growls, pushing the paper of surrender forward still, until the hard edge of the thick paper cuts into the skin of my wrist._

_"This one dies if you don't." Another voice joins the first. I look up to see my brother, olive eyes dull with fatigue as he claws weakly at the arms holding him still. It's a futile struggle._

_"Fratello." His voice cracks, and I do, too._

_I take the blood-tipped pen with shaking fingers and sign the paper. My usually neat lines are shaky and uncertain. A shot rings out anyway, and a body thuds to the floor. I close my eyes tightly. I know I'll be next, but I expected it. Still..._

_I will not die._

_\---------------_

_"You've already lost this war. There is no hope for you anymore. Sign the treaty before we do worse." The voice cuts clear and deep, and I turn my head to look at my brother. His eyes are colder than I've ever seen them, pinned on the mahogany desk in front of him rather than the gloved hand that offers up the papers we never wanted to see._

_"This means peace," I remind him. "The war is done, and we can return to what we were before."_

_"This is peace without victory. It will not last," the man replies, not trying to conceal the fury burning inside him. His gaze is unflinching as he shifts it from the desk to me._

_I almost don't recognize the person behind those icy chips, but I don't say a word._

_He will not die._

_\---------------_

_"What a creep! You're so scary. Go away." Sneering faces, voices filled with contempt; it's nothing new, but something seems to break in the man toward which those words jab. It's one thing to handle internal conflict, being torn apart from the inside out with a festering disease you can't get rid of, but it's another to be reminded of how broken you are by others who know nothing._

_Tears pool and slip down the man's cheeks, his violet eyes turning dull until there is nothing left in them but a void._

_"They don't mean it," I tell him, trying to comfort him, but he doesn't listen. He tells me to stand back, and I know he is about to lose control. He will hurt even me, his sister, once he snaps. This world has worn down on his soul, and he is tired of it._

_He swings his weapon, and it's not his blood he's covered in when he finishes. I do not cry. I cannot. Tears are something that dried up for both of us a long time ago. I will never see the world through blurred lenses. He limps slowly from a blow that landed on his left leg as he walks back over to me, but I make no move to help._

_He will not die._

_\---------------_

_I surround myself with people and block out the world. It's easier than facing the conflict, and I want to let the others battle it out. It's too painful to meet, and there's nothing I can do to stop them. Because there is pain in conviction and to cling to conviction is to let everything else fall away like late autumn leaves that brown and rot, all for nothing._

_A girl hands me a glass of champagne, and I down it. She reminds me of someone I buried deep in my grove of memories long ago, her eyes piercing, dissecting me. She tangles her fingers in my hair, pulling my locks taut, and I let her._

_The next moment, I'm knocked back on the floor as the roof caves in, trapping everyone underneath a pile of debris. The girl is dead before she hits the floor, skull cracked, and eyes empty. Alarms ring through the air. Bombs. I lie quietly as if pretending to be dead and wait for the attack to cease._

_I will not die._

_\---------------_

_We are countries, and we have seen things. We know the cost of war, the color of death, and the atrocities people can commit._

_We are countries, and we will not die._

_This is our legacy._


End file.
